Cooked
Etymology
“Cooked” for ruined or wiped out draws on both Australian slang (where it has long meant messed up, exhausted, or intoxicated) and Black American usage. The gaming- and Gen Z-inflected “we’re cooked” — we’re finished — surged online around 2023–2024.
adjective · /KOOKT/
Doomed, in serious trouble, or utterly exhausted — as in “we’re cooked.”
What it names
It names the feeling that a situation is already lost or that a person is completely spent. It compresses “there is no way out of this” into a single blunt word.
Example
The deadline moved up a week and we’re only half done — we’re cooked.
Related idea
To be cooked is the verdict that the loss is already inevitable; taking the L is accepting it once it has landed.
See also